Cron Job Using Hostgator Cpanel times out shortly after campaign and autoresume does not kick in
I have recently started sending out my email campaigns using Sendy. The first day i sent out the campaign I had to hit resume every 2 or 3 minutes until the campaign was sent out to all recipients. This was painfully slow. The second day I set up a cron job in hostgators cpanel using the command: "php /home/your domain/public_html/sendy/scheduled.php > /dev/null 2>&1" as instructed by Sendy. I was then able to schedule the campaign which i did for the following morning. I was under the impression that this would take care of the auto resume function.
The following day the campaign was sent however, again after about 2-3 minutes sendy stopped sending the emails out to my list. What is worse is that the resume button is not even showing now, so the campaign is permanently hung. I received the following message in my email from Cron Daemon with the following content: "/bin/sh: line 1: 25222 Killed php /home/my domain/public_html/sendy/scheduled.php > /dev/null 2>&1"
Can you help me fix this issue and get the autoresume function working.
Comments
Hi Asheesh,
Sending timeout usually due to memory/CPU exhaustion, if your server is not able to support your subscriber base, consider using a more capable server. Amazon EC2 is a great option as you can select the type of server resources you need.
The "automatic resume function" kicks in between 5 - 10 minutes. If it does not resume sending, your memory or CPU has been exhausted.
The 'Resume' button has been removed in version 1.1.6 if a cron job is detected to be setup for sending so you don't erroneously click 'Resume' while the campaign is either still sending or being automatically resumed which may cause multiple emails to be sent to the same recipient.
Thanks.
Ben
Hi Ben, I have been speaking to Hostgator support. They say it is a shared server and server time out for php executions is only 30 seconds. This is why it gets stuck and hangs. What should I do? This is really annoying and costing me lost revenue.
Hi Asheesh,
Either upgrade to Hostgator VPS tier, or install and run Sendy on Amazon EC2. If you're interested on the latter, PM me.
Thanks.
Ben
ok, I will upgrade to vps as this is simple option. In the meantime, I have deleted the cron job from my cpanel on hostgators shared server. However when I send out the campaign in 'send now' mode it gets stuck in 'preparing to send mode'. any solutions? Till i upgrade to vps I will have to press resume manually
Hi Asheesh,
Go to http://your_sendy_installation_url/reset-cron to reset cron statuses so that you will see the 'Resume' button.
Remember to also delete your cron job in your hosting control panel.
Thanks.
Ben
Hi Ben, I have successfully migrated the site to a new vps and changed the server timeout limit to 3600 so there is absolutely no way that the server will have any problems sending out the newsletters now.
I am however facing a problem. When I send a campaign out it seems to get stuck in preparing. This is especially weird as I can see that there have been some opens although that is increasing at a very very slow pace.
Also, yesterday I sent out a newsletter and I think the migration of servers kicked in. Today once the migration has been completed and I logged into Sendy, That campaign is not showing up. I am also receiving messages in my inbox (undeliverables) from yesterdays campaign.
Could it be that this is what is affecting todays campaign and thats why it is stuck in Preparing mode?
Cron jobs have been set up so thats not the problem either.
Ok it looks like it has finally started working properly. One thing, Although my allowance is 28 emails a second it is sending only around 6 per second according to the stats.
Is this normal? Or do I have to request amazon to increase this.
Hi Asheesh,
Whether sending can reach your top speed depends on your server's ability to reach it.
Thanks.
Ben